[To answer a question someone asked me, yes I will tell Imelda's side of the story of how they met. Every story so far loves to tell the story of how they met with Hector being the lovesick fool and Imelda playing hard to get. While it's fun to write Hector kissing the ground she walks on, I think Imelda is just as crazy about Hector as he was about her and still is. She was supposedly softer and sweeter when she was young and grew more strict and harsh after Hector left. I think the fact that she was so angry and tried so hard to erase Hector from the family showed how much she loved and adored him that it crushed her so much that he left her and their child. You don't ban someone from your family history to be forgotten if you didn't care that much about them. If you had so much love for someone and then they abandon you, it will drive you to do drastic things.]

Hector's P.O.V

We all panicked and scattered around the shop to put everything back in its place. I helped the twins move the table back into its original place. Rosita and Victoria worked in flash speed picking up all the shoes from the floor and into its proper places. I was thoroughly impressed with my family's skills, it makes me wonder exactly how many times they've actively tried to hide things from Imelda.

"Whoever locked this door better have a good explanation! And if no one opens this door in the next 5 seconds you better pray I don't find a way in myself!" Imelda yelled outside the door banging on it. It sounded like she was using her boot now. It also looked like she would make good on her word of that threat because he could see the wood door start to crack from the impact of her boot.

"1! 2! 3! …" Julio ran to the door and unlocked the door before she could count to 4. He huffed and puffed from running to the door and gasped in fear as he saw Imelda in all her beautiful fury glaring at us, heavily breathing from pounding on the door still holding her boot. I didn't know what to do with my hands and I could feel my knees shaking. I look on my left and right and see everyone else equally afraid.

"Mama Imelda…." Rosita said trying to sound cheerful and not at all guilty with a forced smile. Imelda's eyes grew even more narrow. "You're back early…."

"Yes, I was lucky enough to purchase all of our supplies in such good time, I thought we could start early on that new shoe design we discussed and low and behold I'm locked out OF MY OWN STORE!" Imelda yells stomping into the room. I felt I could relax a bit when I saw her put her boot back on. She had her arms crossed and her face turned up looking down on Rosita as best she could.

"Well you see, we just wanted to have a nice talk to get to know our Papa Hector." Julio explained removing his hat from his head to hide behind it as he tried to speak.

"And you had the doors and windows locked why?" She asked turning her head to look back at him with what would have been a raised eyebrow if she had one.

Everyone looked at the other to see if anyone had an idea. I felt bad that my family was in such a spot. Luckily I thought of something.

"We….wanted some privacy!" I shouted triumphantly. Imelda stared at me now both annoyed and confused.

"What?" she asked now putting her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, you know how there are bunch of nosy chismosos around town. We…..didn't want someone listening in on our private family conversation just to be the talk of the town. I mean you value our family's privacy right?" I ask with a nervous smile shrugging my shoulders hoping she'd buy it.

She took a few more steps towards me and leaned in looking me in the eye. She turned her eyes in Victoria's direction who has seemed the least phased from this whole predicament.

"Is this true?" Imelda asks her.

Victoria smoothly says, "Yes it is. I thought it was very considerate of him to value our privacy." She added. I felt touched she added that last part to give me credit.

She looked at everyone else and just stayed silent for awhile. Then she sighed in defeat and held her head in her hand.

"Alright I believe you, but don't lock the door! Closing it is enough. No one would be dumb enough to try and trespass into our shop." Imelda said picking up her bag of supplies she bought. Somewhere in the interrogation she must have dropped it on the floor.

She walked into another room and everyone let out a deep breath in relief. I fanned myself with my hat and leaned on a nearby chair.

"That was too close you guys" I said.

"But we did it" Felipe said.

"Yeah next time we get a chance you can finish the story" Oscar said.

"Next time?!" I shout. "Oh no, no, no. We can't keep on doing this. It felt wrong lying to Imelda and I already told you how we met, that's all you wanted to know." I said with my arms crossed picking up my guitar ready to leave.

"Yes well that was before we learned how you met wasn't interesting at all" Victoria bluntly stated.

"Kind of boring" Felipe said and Oscar nodded in agreement.

I couldn't believe these guys. "Well sorry to break it to you but that's how we met. I heard her sing, I ran, I couldn't talk to her for a year and then I ran into her. That's how it happened." I was almost out the door when I sighed in exhaustion from all the stress my family put me through.

"Look, I never thought I'd ever be able to be this close to Imelda in decades. Now she lets me into her shop, into her house, allowed me to be a part of the family again. I'm not gonna ruin that by keeping secrets from her. God knows I've hurt the woman enough as it is." I said as I walk out the door and wave goodbye to my family without looking at them.

[Since Hector is not in this part I will narrate the following scenes.]

The family looked out the door and then at each other.

"He's right, we shouldn't have pushed." Rosita said holding her hands to her chest.

"I suppose it was selfish of us to push him to reveal personal information about Mama Imelda and his relationship." Victoria admitted looking ashamed of herself.

"Well why don't we ask Mama Imelda then?" Julio asked putting his hat back on.

"If it were that easy we would have done it in the first place" Felipe said sarcastically.

"And why didn't we? Because we were too afraid to ask. And we shouldn't be afraid. If Mama Imelda has allowed him to get this close to us then it shouldn't be a problem if we ask about her past. We are barely getting to know Papa Hector and there is so much to know." Victoria said wagging her finger at Felipe as if to give me a lecture.

"If you're so brave why don't you ask her?" Oscar challenged crossing his arms and looking annoyed. Which is fair since they all were too afraid to approach Mama Imelda before.

Victoria glared at him and then turned her back to him. "Fine I will" she said defiantly and marched into the room Mama Imelda went into.

Rosita watched her go and suddenly felt bold. "I'll come with you" she said.

Victoria looked at her for a moment in shock but then smiled warmly. So they both walked into the other room to talk to Mama Imelda.

The three remaining men in the room looked at each other scratching the back of their heads.

"What should we do now?" Julio asked.

"I don't know about you but I don't want to be in this room when she starts throwing things." Oscar said and walked out fast.

"Me neither" Felipe replied and walked out also. Julio followed behind them.

The Rivera shoe shop doubled as their house. The living room and kitchen were in the bottom and up the stairs was the bedrooms. Mama Imelda dropped the bag of supplies on the kitchen table, more like threw it because she was exhausted she didn't even care that she put all the new shoe material on the table where they eat.

"Mama Imelda" Victoria spoke. Imelda turned around and saw Victoria and Rosita looking at her almost in fear.

"Ay, don't worry. I'm not mad anymore. I just need some rest." Imelda said waving her hand to signal she was over her anger. She felt winded just from banging on the door.

"Yes, well actually we wanted to ask you something" Victoria said walking up to her. Imelda had turned her back and was about to walk up the stairs. She turned around and faced her again.

"What is it?" Imelda asked.

"Well it's a little personal, but you seem okay now so we thought it would be okay to ask now, but if you.." Rosita was cut off.

"ENOUGH BEATING AROUND THE BUSH YOU KNOW I HATE THAT KIND OF TALK" Imelda demanded annoyed.

"We wanted to ask about how you met Papa Hector." Victoria said fast. Imelda's annoyed face turned blank and her eyes blew out wide. It didn't look like she was going to blow up in anger, but she did look uneasy.

"Why would you want to know that", Imelda asked suspicious.

"So we could know more about your past together and how you fell in love" Rosita spoke up with an innocent smile.

Imelda raised a would be eyebrow at her and just stayed silent. "What makes you think you need to know that" She asked giving her full attention to them and now crossing her arms and looking down on them as if they were being punished.

"He's our family now Mama Imelda. We want to know more about him. We want to know more about your past together. For years we never bothered to ask you about him because we knew how he hurt you so we didn't even though we were all curious as to what brought you together. Now he's part of our familia but it feels like talking to a stranger because we know so little about him." Victoria said.

Imelda's arms dropped and her harsh expression dropped she looked down at her hands and then held them to her chest.

"We want to know what it was like when you first met him. How did you feel when you were around him? How did he treat you?" Rosita asked happily. Victoria looked at her with a smirk. She knew Rosita was looking for a tragic romance story.

Imelda gave a light chuckle and smiled. "He treated like royalty." She looked up and to the side starting to reminisce.

"I remember how he would shower me with compliments. How he would stare at me when I wasn't looking but I could feel his eyes on me; how he would smile at me and not look away even when I caught him staring at me. He put me on a pedestal as if I were a goddess. Ay dios mio I didn't know how to take that kind flattery." She covered her face with her hands with a dumb grin on her face. If she had skin she would have been blushing.

Victoria and Rosita look at each other and smile.

"Sounds to me like he really loved you. And still does" Victoria said.

"He was always a hopeless romantic" Imelda said with a sigh and still a bright smile on her face. She appeared to still be reminiscing.

Rosita hated to ask this question but she wanted to know.

"Mama Imelda, have you forgiven Papa Hector?" Rosita asked slowly. Imelda's dreamy smile vanished. She looked confused.

Imelda took a deep breath. "I am close to forgiving him now." She said as if it were hard to even speak.

"I never thought I'd ever even consider forgiving him, but now…. Learning what happened, everything that happened between him and Ernesto" Imelda spat out his name in disgust. Not too long ago she barely spoke Hector's name. "What he did to him! What he did to our family! What…I did." Imelda's whole body seemed to sag. She covered her eyes with her hand masking her pain as best she could.

"What you did?" Victoria asked.

"Yes!" Imelda said harshly removing her hand from her face. "I removed any trace of Hector from our family, and because of that he was almost gone!" She let out. She paced back and forth in distress.

"He almost left me….again. I always thought that I wouldn't care if he disappeared. After learning of the final death I told myself I wouldn't care if he faded into nothing. But…." Imelda stopped pacing and held her hand to her mouth to stop a sob. "Seeing him deteriorate before my eyes, to see him so weak and helpless, I would have given anything to stop whatever other worldly power was taking him from me." She tried to stop herself from crying. She held back good.

"Oh Mama Imelda" Rosita said approaching her putting a hand on her back.

"Seeing him come back…I never felt so relieved." Imelda said with a tired smile. She removed her hand from her mouth. "I realized then that there was no point in holding my anger for him. It's…..tiring to stay angry for so long. So many times I wanted to give up my rage and move on but I felt like I'd be too soft, too weak to forgive and forget so easily. But he made an effort to work for my trust. He has not complained once and moves at a pace I'm most comfortable." Imelda said sweetly.

"So….would it be alright to ask you about when you met Hector?" Rosita asked shyly with a grin. Imelda chuckled to herself and sighed.

"Alright, you win" Imelda said.

"Okay, so when did you first meet" Rosita asked coming forward to Imelda and looking eager. Victoria was about to tell her to ask a different question since Hector told them they only met after running into each other.

"Well…..I'm not even sure Hector knows this but, I actually knew who he was before we met" Imelda said nonchalantly. Rosita looked like she hit the jackpot with the grin she was wearing and Victoria looked equally shocked. This may be the more interesting story.